Does Anything Make Sense Anymore?

I have obsessions.  Usually they manifest around music.  Back in 2001, when mp3s seemed to be falling out of the New York sky like ash from the Trade Center, I must have stumbled upon 9 or 10 versions of Gloomy Sunday, a song I had never heard before.  Also known as the "Hungarian Suicide Song," the word gloomy is a bit of an understatement when considering the lyrics, which are performed from the point of view of a bereft woman singing of her dead lover and her plans to join that person.  Bjork's version is as brash as she.  Sinead O'Connor also has a lovely version, with a klezmery sounding clarinet intro, the song  then moves through until it reaches an almost late-1950s hip jazz flavor (think Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennet, Mel Torme). Given Sinead already sang a song about being stretched on her dead lover's grave, it is fitting she recorded Gloomy Sunday.  Billie Holiday's version can't be beat, in case you wondered. But you can get creeped out seeing people trying to do so, like here. I digress.  In every playlist I made, I was just learning about playlists back in 2001, I seemed to have included a version of the song on it.  I found it incredibly romantic., in a gothic, missing my teenage existentialist angst, kind-of-way.  I also had multiple versions of Henry Purcell's Dido's Lament that snuck into those same playlists. Yes, I like funerals better than weddings, the dead can't change their minds and die again, and their is no registry to worry about, no shopping to do. This was going somewhere.  Oh yes, obsessions.  I have several.  

First, keeping Jenny healthy.  It's a thing. Second, and not unrelated, clearly, is reading journal articles as often as I can on some particular aspect of PDAC. Initially, to see if there was any way to make this nightmare end, to keep the train from reaching the last stop on the "Destination Fucked" railroad. Journal articles about PDAC start out, without exception, telling the reader that anyone who has the disease is already dead, they just don't know it.  So, with that in mind, I switched over to trying to figure out, because her doctor will not tell her, what her prognosis might be, how soon would we reach the station.  Not a morbid curiosity, mind you, but my feeble attempt at some semblance of control.  Not knowing is how we all live, we just can't know, unless like the character in Gloomy Sunday, we create our own plan, choose the time the little black train to nowhere will arrive.  But, you can get an idea, if you have a major illness, whether or not the light at the end of the tunnel--the train that will run you down--is near your stop.  So, I read.  I keep thinking I will find the itinerary. I haven't. But today I did stumble upon three interesting bits of information.  People who are married live longer, because people take care of them, and help them with their obligations, giving the patient more time to find joy than a single person, alone, would have.  Secondly, I read today that there has been very little research done on the prognostic power of CA 19-9 for people who are receiving palliative chemotherapy, as Jenny is. "There have been surprisingly few studies investigating the use of baseline CA19-9 in predicting survival for patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer who undergo systemic chemotherapy." The article was written 16 years ago, but my search of the literature using PubMed didn't find anything to contradict that assertion. Given that 85%--that is the latest statistic I read-- are diagnosed when surgery is out of the question, and also given that those who have the surgery only tend to live about another two years post surgery, its inexplicable why the focus of cancer antigen measurement's import has been almost exclusively on those who are eligible or who have had surgery.  Doctors like to feel successful too, I suppose.  Meanwhile, 85% of the people deserve more effort.  That said, the article, and even those which focus on surgery eligible or those already operated on all say the same thing.  While a decrease after the first 8 weeks of chemotherapy is great, once the numbers start rising, you better get your business fixed right, because as Woody said, you're soon "gonna be riding your little train. . ." 

So, I'm scared.  Jenny is tough, tougher than gristle.  Also, I don't share any of the scary research with her, fwiw.  She has asked me not to, and the doctor suggested we not look at it, when we first met him a year ago next month.  I am honest with her, tell her that I am fearful of her dying, and that living so long she has clearly beaten the odds, which she knows.  I worry about Thanksgiving, Christmas, wonder and worry every day, almost every minute.  That old saw that people can deal with loss of a loved one more easily when the person is dying slowly, is complete and utter bullshit.

So, along with music obsessions and journal reading, the other marquee madness is this house hunting during the bubble.  It has kept us muy occupado, forced the two of us to work as a team, improved our day-to-day interactions.   But, truth be told, its sapping her energy.  And I am not sure whither it goes.  

The View from the Deck is 270 degrees.

We found a house Jenny loves.  It is in Delridge, has 5 beds, very private, with a massive greenspace ravine that is on the other side of the fenced yard.  Today, her feet are cooler, despite the heat, but she is still on track to buy the home.  Offer date is Thursday.  There is no reason it should go for a million.  It's in Delridge.  On a dead end, above the commercial dump, but on a massive greenbelt.  The place has million dollar views and rats are a dime a dozen.  I guessed as much.  Rats would be a problem no matter what. It's Seattle. The house is on a greenbelt.  It's close to the Duwamish.  And, did I mention about a mile down the road, but directly below this greenbelt, is a commercial dump.  The inspection report, which I went over with a gapped-tooth comb yesterday, but more carefully today, mentions rodent evidence in the crawlspace below the house, in the attic, and the sellers recommend having pest control every month.  Every month.  I hate rats.  I hate rats.  The house, which is gorgeous, has million dollar views, and a similar price tag.  Its listed at 890.  It will go for over a million, according to our realtor and our experience.  

I am chagrined.  Corey died June 23, 1984.  A few days later the tragedy veered into the macabre.  Another tragedy compounded Corey's family's, when a body was pulled out of the Green River and misidentified as Corey. In truth, it was a body that had been missing since Memorial Day Weekend.   Larry Leaky's corpse was found, to be exact. It seems funny to me now, his name, considering how long Leaky was in the water, the poor soul.  It took days and lots of divers and dives to find Corey in a 20 foot pool.  It's  been 37 years.  It was a shock to the system, no less than losing Jenny will be, despite the preparation.  Clearly, Jenny's death will have greater impact on me, but death isn't the Olympics, and grief isn't a contest either.

I had it in my head that today is the day Corey died, but I knew better.  I talked to family about it today, convinced for whatever reason.  More baffling, I wrote about the anniversary of his death two weeks ago in my journal, the lapse is all the more troubling, its like the airbrakes went out on my train of thought. 

How about that weather?